Cultural and HRM Issues for UK Business Locating Call Centre in Japan

Critically evaluate cultural and
HRM issues for a UK
business locating a call centre
in Japan

Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
TASK...............................................................................................................................................3
A critical evaluation of cultural issues UK companies need to take into consideration when
locating a call centre operation in Japan......................................................................................3
A critical evaluation of HRM issues UK companies need to take into consideration when
locating a call centre operation in Japan......................................................................................5
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................9
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................11

INTRODUCTION
Human resource management is determined as the strategic approach that facilitates the
organisation to manage employees effectively and efficiently in order to gain various competitive
advantages. Effective management of organisational people maximise their performance that
help to attain all organisational goals and objectives properly. International human resource
management is defined as the activity to manage organisational employees at international level.
It is the process of acquiring, allocating as well as utilising human resources in international
business to attain defined goals and objectives. Call centre is centralised office which is used by
organisation to receiving and transmitting large enquiries through using telephones. Call centre is
managed by company for the purpose of administrating incoming products and service as well as
inquiries from customers. Organisations formulates various strategies and planning to maintain
all function properly and accomplish all goals efficiently. There are various cultural as well as
human resource management issues that impacts on organisations of UK to perform their
functions and activities different country. In this report various cultural and HRM issues that are
considered by the UK companies to establishing call centre in Japan is mentioned in this report.
TASK
A critical evaluation of cultural issues UK companies need to take into consideration when
locating a call centre operation in Japan
To conduct business functions internationally organisations of UK considered various political,
technological, legal and economic factors by some time cultural barriers are discounted.
Ignorance of these cultural factors impacts on organisational market share, damage business
reputation in market, enhance various legal challenges and affect return on investment
negatively. Companies of UK analyse the market of Japan and its culture for opening call centre
operations than formulates effective strategies and planning to ensure smooth and efficient
running of organisation functions (Abuazoom, Hanafi and Ahmad, 2017). Cultural issues impact
on the decision-making process human resources management so, organisation considered all
these factors in business decisions and culture for attaining all goals and objectives properly.
Some cultural issues are defined below:
Adopt global business to local market: As attitude and behaviour of customers are
influenced by the cultural. Various UK companies are locating different call centre operations in

the Japan so, before moving to new market organisation must identify needs, demands and
preferences of customers. Unless driving local culture business model organisation face risk in
global business. For attaining success in international, global mindset as well as interface of
globalisation and localisation is being required. Companies need to consider the local and
international culture for running business operations efficiently.
Adopt management practices across cultures: Mostly management theories, practices
and model are driven by the cultural assumptions. There is no universal theories that apply in
every culture, so UK companies develop cultural assumptions of Japan in order to acknowledged
management practices for operating business operations properly (Barrena-Martinez, López-
Fernández and Romero-Fernández, 2019). Different ideas and concepts are transferred to another
cultural environment without considering any cultural variations. In the situation of translating
the practices without managing cultural differences organisation may face difficulties to perform
business functions appropriately and it may lead organisation towards losses.
Understand local legal and ethical issues: International organisations face difficulties to
understand legal as well as ethical issues properly. UK companies understand all local and global
ethical issues to run call centre operations properly. Ignorance of cultural factors impact the
ability of business to attract, leverage and retain the pool of global talent. As the companies
employed the local staff members of Japan and develop effective HRM policies according to
cultural profile of local employees. As there are various factors such as motivation, commitment
towards organisation and job satisfaction are varies in different cultures.
Stakeholder conflicts: The concept of diversification enhance the complexity in global
business. The conflict of stakeholder enhances the potential for language as well as creates
different communication barriers that increase the risk on ambiguity and conflicts in business as
well as impacts the decision-making differences (Brewster, Mayrhofer and Farndale eds., 2018).
On the other hand, ineffectiveness of managing diversification creates the challenge in business
process to run call centre operations. UK companies need to consider the stakeholder perspective
and other cultural issues in order to run business efficiently in diversify business environment.
Models about culture in IHRM:
The Harvard Model: The respective model contains six components of human resource
management such as stakeholders, HRM policies choice, long-term consequences, HR outcomes